The magazine celebrates the release of 'Please Please Me' and talks with Paul about the making of the iconic album. During the interview Paul recalls the 9 hour 45 minute recording session and how the band were not allowed in the control room at Abbey Road's Studio 2.

Paul also discusses getting into experimental music revealing how 'Yesterday' nearly ended up with an electronic backing!

NME: It's very unusual for someone your age to be going to a Jay Z and Kanye gig.
Paul McCartney: Yes, but I'm in music, you know? And also, if I'm gonna do a tour I like to go and see what other people are doing. I didn't wanna bring my tour out and be amazingly old-fashioned. So if people are going, 'Oh man, Beyoncé... she was killer!', I like to go there and go, 'Yeah, we can do better than this.'

Your '60s contemporaries are on top form too - Bowie, the Stones, Neil Young...
Well, some of them are dead! But no, it's true, I know what you mean.

Is it a competition?
Yeah - they wanna be part of what I'm doing. 'Cos I've been touring quite consistently. But it's what we do, it's the thing we're best at. And we've had a lot of practice and we've got a lot of music to draw from. So, it's really natural that if the Stones are getting on - which they are - they come out.

Did you see them recently?
Yeah. They're a great band. I've always followed the Stones, always been to their concerts and stuff. I saw them at the Barclays Centre in New York after they'd just done The O2. They were good. They were playing well. Keith and Ronnie were playing very well.

And Bowie? He'd been away for so long...
(Interrupts) Mmm. National event.

How can you top his return without disappearing for 10 years?
That's the only way to do it. Or die. And neither of them are very good options. I think, as you know, I'm very happy. I get enough coverage. I get a lot. So I don't really worry about that. What you can do is you can play South America a lot, somewhere a little bit out of sight, and then you come back to Britain and they're like, 'Oh, he hasn't been here for a while.'

There's a lyric on 'New' track 'Early Days' that has a dig at people who stereotype you as the 'soft' Beatle: "Now everybody seems to have their own opinion/Who did this and who did that/But as for me I don't see how they can remember/When they weren't where it was at". Is that a bugbear of yours?
Yeah. It kind of is. It's only a minor thing, it's nothing I obsess about. But it does happen. I mean, The Beatles' story is actually in history classes - my grandkids say, 'You were in a book today, Grandad!' And you go, 'What?! Oh no! Shame of it!' So you kind of like the idea of them getting it right. For me, when people analyse it all I think, well, on the basis of what? They weren't there, they don't know, they didn't sit in the room with me and John and see who did what. They've heard the stories and stuff but the truth is much more subtle. If me and John were sitting down it wouldn't be (adopts an aggressive caricature of Lennon's voice), 'Come on Paul, write a bit of melody... yer ****er.' The film would be like that. (Adopts high-pitched McCartney voice) 'Oh, OK John, how about this: 'La la la...'

It obviously irks you enough to want to set the record straight.
Yeah, I thought it was worth commenting on. I remember being involved with the people who were making The Buddy Holly Story. I was a big fan of his, and The Crickets were talking to me and they said, 'We're not even in it!' You're like, 'What?!' That's what gets you going. And Sam [Taylor-Wood] came up and she showed me her script, and I said, 'Well that never happened!' In Nowhere Boy, two things pissed me off. John was taller than me - which was not true! We were exactly the same height. But to be portrayed as the little guy? Not wonderful. OK, so he [Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who played McCartney in the film] was a good actor, [but] they should have put platforms on him. Whatever! And then, John knocks me down in the movie. That never happened. I mean, don't you think I'd remember? Things never got like that, but it's now going into some kind of history. People are watching. 'In Spite Of All The Danger' [written by McCartney and George Harrison in their pre-Beatles incarnation The Quarrymen, which also included Lennon] - in the film, that song is made as John's yearning for his mother and there's deep psychological significance [drawn] from that. It wasn't that - it was just a song we sat down and wrote. It would be just as much about my yearning for my mother - we both lost our mothers - but in the movie, (adopts dramatic voice) 'It's John, going through this turmoil, and he's writing.' And I said to her, 'That's not true'. We had to decide, 'Look, it's a movie, it's a film, it's not a documentary, it's not a biography. It's a film of something.' John naturally becomes more of a legend because he was killed tragically. And he was great as well. You couldn't become a legend without being great, but in films like that he does suddenly take a lead role that he never took in reality. It was much more even. So that's what that's about: that one line is just about that. It's my little, sort of... seeing as I'm talking about the past, let's cover that in the end verse and stick it to whoever thinks they know more than me. 'Cos they weren't there!

You're asked about the deaths of John and George on a daily basis; it's a subject that's equally morbid and sad. Does it get you down?
If Lennon walked in today I'd say, 'Let's write a song, man!'PAUL MCCARTNEY
It's not a bad thing. In a way it's a good thing, because it keeps them present. John is as much of a presence for me now as he was when he was alive and we weren't living in each other's pockets. So that's a good thing. The terrible thing, obviously, is when you talk about his killing in New York. That's shocking and that's saddening. But you don't normally concentrate on that. You get over that in one sentence, and you go on to say, 'Let me tell you man, what a nutter! He was crazy.' You start finding it kind of joyous. And in that respect, it's quite nice to be reminded of him.

What would you say to him if he walked in today?
Let's write a song, man! (Claps hands) Get your geet out! Come on!

And what would The Beatles sound like if they were aged 20 in 2013?
Oh, that's interesting. I suppose you just have to look back at what we were doing. We were equating it to what was coming in off the American charts - Buddy Holly, rock'n'roll, Elvis and all that, The Everly Brothers. We were mashing Buddy Holly's voice and guitar-playing with The Everly Brothers - we loved the harmonies. Me and John thought we were Don and Phil.

They've got the best harmonies going...
They really have! They were fantastic! To answer your question, I think we'd be looking at what was coming out of the charts. Not so much the Katy Perry stuff, 'cos we wouldn't be able to identify with her - she's a girl and pretty, which we're not really interested in... musically, anyway. So we'd be looking at things like Kings Of Leon, Dylan, Neil Young. I think we'd be doing stuff like that.

So still band-based, rather than electronic?
I think so. It would still be guys playing music. I don't think we'd be sampling too much. I think we'd side with people who play.